"So
Vava is going to
Tarafal to fix a
satellite dish and said I could come with him. You wanna go?"
"Um, sure..."
I've wanted to visit
Tarafal since before I came to Cape Verde. I had heard how peaceful, how beautiful it was, and how once you got there you never want to leave...
...and part of the reason you never want to leave is the road to
Tarafal. Or rather, the path where a road should be. Thus explained my hesitance at going to
Tarafal for
the day. The last group of volunteers who went ended up taking a boat to
Mindelo and another boat from
Mindelo to Porto
Novo instead of braving the road back, several days after they arrived. And we were going both ways in one day.
Starting at 5am.
But I love an adventure and so 5am Monday morning, we were off. Well, 5:15. And then the gas station wouldn't give us gas for some reason, so we had to drive around to someone
elses house to get something or other and then go back to get gas. So 5:30 and we were off.
The road starts off rather well, like a road should be (or like a road in Cape Verde is...like a brick road, sort of smooth and only a little bumpy), heading towards
Lagedos. After the turnoff for
Tarafal, you've got about 13 more minutes of peace until the road ends. Literally. It just stops, and in it's place is a sort of carved out dirt path littered with fallen rocks, some of which are now
embedded in the dirt path, many of which you have to maneuver around, frequently on cliff edges. At 5:50am, which is still dark. I think we averaged about 15km an hour, which is about 9mph.
Around 6:45 we made our first stop for photos (see the
flickr link) of the highest point on
Santo Antao. And a shot of
grogue. The moon was still up and we got a great shot of the changing sky. It was chilly out, which only added to the ambiance.
**So a side note about
grogue and drinking in Cape Verde. People here drink. Many people drink a lot. A lot. Frequently. As in starting at 6am and continuing through the day. In America, we might consider half the population of Cape Verde to be alcoholics - if binge drinking = alcoholism, and binge drinking also = 5 or more drinks in a day/night...well...But this isn't America, and while I won't downplay the affect of drinking on the population (mostly men - drinking is much less acceptable among women. Not to say women don't drink, just usually less frequently and not so much
grogue), there is a cultural element that vies alcohol and alcoholism differently. People recognize there are
alcoholics, but that's typically reserved for those people that walk around
visibly drunk all day, slurring their words and stumbling, or just blurry eyed and not too coherent. So all this to say that a
grogue stop or two on the way to here or there isn't that uncommon, and in fact I have yet to make a trip of longer than an hour with a Cape
Verdean that has not involved at least one
grogue stop.
And if I haven't mentioned it,
grogue is alcohol made from sugar cane. Many people brew it themselves; some is really good, most is pretty harsh, all of it is really really strong. Moonshine anyone?**
Most of the drive was done in the dark or dusk, and it was beautiful to be traveling in the mountains watching the sun come up and the sky changing. It was almost enough to make you forget the road. Almost. Oh and the other thing...
Vava is always warm. So even though it was chilly out (very chilly, as many mornings are, especially at higher elevations) the windows were open and when it got too dusty, the windows were closed and the A/C went on. We froze in the back seat.
About 45 minutes outside of
Tarafal you can look over the cliffs and see the town. It's beautiful, a dot of green in the stark brownness of the dry mountains. You see the small plots of farm land and the black sand beach, the fishing boats that take most of their catches straight to
Mindelo because there is a better market there. It's one of the most isolated places on the island, possibly only eclipsed by the town next to it (
Montrigo I think) which is only
accessible via a three hour hike or hour boat ride from
Tarafal. Amazing. For all its development, this is Cape Verde too.
We arrived finally, driving past the stretch of black beach and the shaded
tree lined paths, up the cobblestone roads to the local
Camara building. At the hotel
next door there was a huge breakfast waiting for us, complete with fried fish, eggs and
catchupa; it was our first taste of
catchupa since leaving Santiago, and it was delicious.
Tarafal doesn't have electricity until 11am, so we walked around, down to the beach, talked to the fisherman preparing tuna - because the electricity is sporadic, there isn't a whole lot of ability to
refrigerate things. Thus, the fish they do get is frequently salted to preserve it. (see photos!) The fisherman made fun of us in
Kriolu, not realizing we spoke it, but it was fine. I'm sure they're used to tourists coming and taking their pictures and think it's amusing. Yes, despite the access issues,
Tarafal is a tourist
destination, and if you're willing to brave the ride, it's a lovely place to spend a few days relaxing, hiking and snorkeling. We drove up to the higher reaches of the village and saw their irrigation supply; the system they use for irrigation here is really cool - sort of like narrow cement pathways that double as footpaths to carry water to it's destination. The water comes from giant tanks that are typically filled with rain water; I'm not sure what happens in the dry season. These also sometimes double as local swimming pools. Did I mention Peace Corps requires us to filter and bleach our water?
Around 11 we drove up to the towns
satellite, where I did some sun bathing and reading (and napping). We were there about an hour when it was discovered something needed to be replaced...and we were done. 3 hours here, 3 hours back for 1 hour of work that couldn't be completed. And two meals - lunch was waiting when we got back to the hotel. Two kinds of potatoes, two kinds of fish (tuna and something else that was pretty yummy) and rice. Cape
Verdeans are big on starch.
I don't know if the ride back was better or worse, if it seemed faster or slower, but it was
definitely painful. No wonder they stopped for
grogue; it numbs the pain. We had refilled the 16oz bottle they brought on the way there with some of the local brew in
Tarafal (
Grogue de Jaim, which I was told was the best on the island, and which I concur was quite delicious - smooth with a sweet aftertaste). We stopped too to pick up some fresh goat cheese on the way back, and by 6pm, we were safe and sound back in Port.
After 6 hours on those "roads," both of our backs felt horrible. Josh felt like he'd pinched something, I felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to my lower back. Two days later I'm still taking
Tylenol for the pain though it is subsiding. I can see why the other volunteers took a boat back. But after all that, we're planning on celebrating Easter in
Tarafal - that's their big celebration, and for 1500$pp a night (which is about $18
usd) you can get a clean room and three meals a day. Good food, good parties, good snorkeling? We're in.
We took a lot of photos, so here is the link on
Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/doveandjoshua/sets/72157611280315413/Next time: Christmas video!
